Los Angeles Times

Space aliens at last have their own landing strip in the Nevada desert- courtesy of the state.

Desolate State Route 375 officialy has been christened the Extraterrestrial Highway - a nod by the state's transportation board to the area's reputation for otherworldly sightings, and a ploy to attract more terrestrial money-spending tourists.

Four highway signs proclaiming the new status will go up in the next couple of months. "Of course they're going to be both horizantal and vertical, so extraterrestrials can see them as they land," chuckled Tom Tait, executive director of the Nevada Commission on Tourism.

Nevada Gov. Bob Miller, chairman of the board that voted the new designation last week suggested the signs be placed flat on the ground so aliens can land on them.

Of more earthly concern, though, is making the signs big enough - maybe 8 feet wide. "Otherwise, if they're small, we're worried they'll be stolen," said Tom Stephens, director of Nevada's Department of Transportion. "Wouldn't that be a nice decoration for your room if you were a teen-ager?"

The highway sits 140 miles northeast of Las Vegas and, more importantly, just outside of a top-secret Air Force range known informally as Area 51. The blacktop runs through an isolated swath of desert that long has been a mecca for UFO seekers from around the world.

Visitors and locals alike tell stories of seeing spaceships with odd lights travelling at warp speeds. The fact that all these sightings are close to a secret installation where experimental aircraft are thought to be tested has only fueled rumors the military is testing captured alien spaceships there. Not surprisingly, the government denies that.

But Nevada never has been shy about coming up with gimmicks to make a little money, and the campaign to publicize the desert as a potential spaceport for extraterrestrials - and a destination for their earthbound friends - has been bubbling along for awhile.

The proprietors of the highway's only restaurant/bar/motel, the Little A'Le'Inn{45k jpeg} - "Earthlings Welcome," says the sign on the door - urged the officials to act.

"Our little community has become internationally known," said Pat Travis, who along with her husband, Joe, serves up "alien burgers" and good-natured hype at the Little A'Le'Inn in the tiny town of Rachel. The Travises celebrated on the way back home from the transporation board meeting in Carson City, the state capital.

"We made a big to-do about it in the car," she said. "We are the first two people to official drive the Extraterrestrial Highway."

Of course, most supports of the name change have more belief in economics than in extraterrestrials. But they'll play along.

"Let me put it this way - I wouldn't want to rule out other life out there," Assemblyman Neighbors said last fall, a few months ago after his bill died in the Nevada Legislature.

"As for sightings? Well, I wouldn't want to ruin a good story," he said laughing.

However, the state transportation board drew the line calling SR 375 through Rachel the Extraterrestrial Alien Highway.

Extraterrestrial means it can be something just flying above the earth. It could be meteors," said Stephens, whose own exposure to alien phenomena is limited to watching "The X-Files" on TV with his 12 year-old son.